


what could be more terrifying (beautiful) than to lose control completely

by summerboysam



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, City Elf Culture and Customs, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Fereldan Culture and Customs, Lavellan's head gets a little weird sometimes is what I mean by that, M/M, Surreal, maybe i'll bump the rating up too but i think this one will stick, the summary took me longer than the actual chapter, this will be pretty tame but i'll add tags as i go along, wow i cannot believe i actually wrote something that doesn't require a thousand trigger tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-04
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2018-11-23 12:48:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11402730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerboysam/pseuds/summerboysam
Summary: "Iriv remembers the voice of the Keeper, telling the story of Elgar’nan banishing the sun in anger, and of Mythal reigning in her partner’s vengeance and creating the moon, to shine in the sun’s absence. He had liked that story very much, so he had prayed on it and borne the pain when he had come of age. Now, the green of the breach clings to everything, even the beams of moonlight unhindered by the clouds."Lavellan loves stories. Stories of his clan, stories of his family, stories told by strangers. He never felt quite at home in his clan, so he leaves.





	1. Haven

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this because of a couple reasons:
> 
> I made this character to romance Dorian, fleshed him out and realized that Cullen would fit so well in his story. Unfortunately, I play on console.  
> I was really frustrated with how little actual characterization options you have in-game.  
> I really love Ferelden. 
> 
> I usually write stuff that is a lot heavier, so I cannot promise this will stay as soft. But I will stick pretty closely to canon, there shouldn't be too many surprises. I also don't do multichaptered stuff, actually. But it's really late here and I drank a lot of coffee (why brain) so I decided to post this. I'm quite nervous about this so I'm interested if other ppl like it.

It’s Josephine, in the beginning, Josephine and Varric. Dorian comes later, Cassandra comes later. Cullen comes much, much later. 

Those first few weeks at Haven, he talks to Josephine and Varric only. Talk as in _talk_ , not speak. He speaks to a great many people those days, but he would not call any of that a conversation. He does a lot of listening, and watching. He is good at those things, but has never been good at talking _(at least not in_ this _tongue,_ he hears desperation whisper at the back of his head; he tries to shove the words away). Here, it’s not so much the words themselves getting stuck in his gut, but the air. Every breath he takes sticks his teeth together, attaches letters and sounds to the roof of his mouth like glue and traps them. 

With Josephine, he talks about work and Antiva and more work, but she is enjoyable company. She likes to talk, and once she’s started, she can hardly be stopped. Talking to her is easy, comfortable, although he is sure that much of the endless stream of chit-chatter is to his benefit. To keep him interested and to keep his thoughts from flying into the deep-hanging clouds above. He does not want to admit it to himself, but he needs it, too, the distraction. He enjoys listening to her, soaks up the words and the melodies and leads them right to his heart. He’s missed them. He’s thought hearing them again would be more agonizing.

Varric, he talks to because he is a storyteller, and Iriv loves stories. Collecting new ones was one of the reasons he volunteered to attend the Conclave for his clan. And these, he has never heard before. Tall tales of adventurers with their hearts on their sleeves and their eyes full of crimson, a city slowly running itself into the ground, and then collapsing, going up in flames and revenge and terror. Stories of friendship. 

“I knew an elf once, had a weapon near as big as yours. Wasn’t an axe, though. Wasn’t like you at all. A lot angrier,” Varric says, chuckles and stares deeper into the dancing flames of the campfire. Solas and Cassandra had retired with the sun, slipping into their tents just as the last beams of light slid over the mountains in the distance. Like this, the Hinterlands are quiet, not even the sound of clashing blades in the distance, only the quiet cracks and pops of the fire to be heard. Cassandra does not seem to like Varric, and Solas does not seem to like Iriv (he hasn’t quite figured out the reason, yet; sometimes he thinks the reason is that he is _too_ Dalish, and then sometimes he thinks it’s that he isn’t _enough_ Dalish, and isn’t that just the story of his life).

“So, Bubbly. You want me to teach you reading, huh?” Varric says, and sighs, long and drawn out, as he tears his eyes away from the fire and onto Iriv. He can feel the unblemished patches of his face heat up (there really isn’t a lot of them; it’s torn all over, and half of it is all scar tissue hidden under ink). Varric chuckles. “Now let’s not make this weird, buddy. S’all good.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk to me like a child,” he says, carefully. He’s been getting the cadence right, lately, smooth ups and downs like river valleys, and joy tugs at the corners of his mouth. 

Varric tugs at the low neckline of his shirt, breathes in, breathes out. “You are, though,” he says, grins crookedly, “not the point, I know.” He is silent for a moment. In the background, hooves clatter and clap. “The Dalish do write though, right? Or just the Keeper and the First? A friend was First and she could.” 

“Just because _I_ cannot doesn’t mean we all can’t,” Iriv says, still slow, still beautiful. 

Varric grimaces. “Don’t go there, kid. Just a question. Your people aren’t exactly forthcoming with information about themselves, y’know?” Iriv glances down at the ground, feels his face heat even more. 

“I mean I was taught once. Didn’t have to use it often, so nothing stuck, really.” He does not dare look up, for fear Varric is sneering at him, even if he’s never seen such an expression on his face. There’s always a time, he’s learned. 

Clothes rustle in Varric’s direction, and boots drag over dirt. Iriv raises his head just that bit to see his legs, now crossed underneath him. “Sure, why not. Ruffles knows, I guess?” Iriv nods. “What about the rest? Can’t imagine they’d be too happy about this.”

“They don’t know. If you’re good, they’ll never have to,” he says and raises his head, accent winding itself back around his tongue. Varric just laughs, loud and hearty, that sound that seems to drag itself right out of his chest and rolls and rumbles through his throat. Apparently, he doesn’t notice how Iriv jumps, his nervous eyes finding the tents. 

“Don’t worry, Bubbly, we’ll get this over in no time. You’re a smart kid,” he says when he has calmed down enough, and is looking at Iriv kindly now, his eyes heavy and pressing on his skin. “Don’t understand how you haven’t picked it up, though. And why they sent you to spy when you’d probably miss a crapload of stuff.” He doesn’t look questioning or like he really expects an answer, and Iriv feels his nerves prickle and scatter. He’s relieved that Varric doesn’t insist (he doesn’t want to explain how he only went because he volunteered, how they couldn't wait to get rid of him; not that it hurts him), but he cannot shake that feeling of being scanned. He remembers how well Varric’s stories express character and wraps his arms around himself, glares at Varric, feet scraping across the ground with the itch to get away. 

Varric does eventually look away. He takes a stick to poke at the fire, rekindles the flames that dance across their faces. “Alright, you got those notes we found on the dead dwarf with you? Let’s start with that.” 

 

Haven is a beautiful place. Iriv feels its history, its traditions and its memories buzz around his head like sparrow’s wings. The whole place is so alive, despite the dread coiling itself black and all-consuming in Iriv’s stomach, despite the gaping maw in the sky. Life has returned back to normal, it seems. People have adjusted to the slight green tinge clinging to their faces and their buildings, to the snow all around. Iriv wants to stay mad at them, but cannot find it in himself. There is too much work to be done, too many people needing him. That’s a new feeling. Being needed. It sets his teeth on edge and his feet tingling, but there isn’t much he can do about it, except work. 

The place he spends the most time at is, weirdly, the church. The light is warm and orange-tinted there (except for the dim shine of his hand, the one he hides under his pillows every night). He had avoided the inside of the church as much as he could, the first days, but habit makes it easier to walk down the length of it. Now that Vivienne has set up a little corner for herself under the arches, time there seems to be passable (talking to her calms him, he finds. She makes all his fears sound reasonable. He doesn’t like to admit it to himself, but she seems to have taken him under her wing, almost.) Once he’s outside again he can almost pretend he enjoyed the claustrophobia. He has gotten so good at lying to himself. 

He should talk to more people, he knows that. Everyone stranded in this green-tinged enclave seems to find some comfort in him. He cannot bring himself to, most of the time. He had never had a lot of people willing to talk to him; the sudden weight of expectations weighs on him. He feels that any inflection to his words, any stumble in diction would shatter the illusion for them. 

Cassandra talks after her very own tune, he realizes later. When he had been in chains, hurting and confused, he had not paid attention to it, too distracted by the force of the words to notice their foreign melody. Her sword had gripped a lot of his attention, too. 

“They see the breach and they see their lives’ end in it,” she tells him, every time he walks by her training dummy, “they see you, and they see their salvation. Whether their savior speaks clear Common or not is of no concern.” Iriv hates how transparent he can be. 

“You worship multiple Gods. Isn’t there room for one more?” she asks him once. He thinks back to the last time her body shielded his back, and he knows she means no harm. Still, the thought leaves a foul taste in his mouth. She does not seem to notice and he does not want to cause any conflict (he doesn’t dare to; people here have been nothing but friendly so far, and still the back of his head is screaming warnings at him). When she picks up her training again, the sharp clanking is jarring to his ears, reminds him more of nails on glass than metal on straw. 

That night, he finds himself wandering through the never-quite-dark night of Haven, pretending the green light around him is really only a remnant of the breach instead of another brand on his skin. He walks out of the church’s looming darkness and into the edges of wilderness Haven is located in. Iriv remembers the voice of the Keeper, telling the story of Elgar’nan banishing the sun in anger, and of Mythal reigning in her partner’s vengeance and creating the moon, to shine in the sun’s absence. He had liked that story very much, so he had prayed on it and borne the pain when he had come of age. Now, green clings to everything, even the beams of moonlight unhindered by the clouds. He had always felt connected to the Dalish by the stories they told, if by nothing else. No one would mind him sitting on the outskirts of the campfire light, listening silently, fiddling with blades of grass and leaves. 

He had heard other stories, though, whenever they traded with humans who seemed somehow reasonable, not outright hostile. And somewhere, deep down, he remembered the voice of a woman, singing of the great King Calenhad, unifying the tribes and leading them into victory, into a new age, a brighter future; singing of trusty Mabari, steady in step and loyal in heart; songs she had very likely learnt during her services for noblemen, remembered and taken home to sing her son to sleep with. He wishes he remembered more of them.

If the night weren’t so cold, he would sleep outside tonight. On his way back to his tent, he notices a single figure hunched by the fire, lion’s mane draped over his shoulders. 

***  
They’re arguing. They’re talking in circles again, their tongues clicking around sounds and rushing over vowels and Iriv can feel his grasp slipping, everything starting to sound like the _whoosh_ of wind through his tent, a roaring close to his ears that he feels he should understand, but cannot for the life of him make sense of. He walks a little slower, falling into step just at Cassandra’s heels. He has made up his mind already, anyway, and his brain is twisting itself up trying to decipher anything they’re saying. 

He decides to go to Redcliffe, and Cullen seems furious. Iriv has half a mind to be frightened by the gleam in his eyes, a reflection off his armor just as likely to be mistaken as fury, by someone less familiar with raw despair as Iriv. He can imagine it must be hard for Cullen, so he does not say anything. He is still careful around the man, has barely spoken more than two sentences to him outside of the war room. The way Cullen stretches all his vowels and twists them into similar ones, only slightly off the standard, conjures up memories of a warm embrace and memories of safety. Things Iriv feels he can deal with another day, if ever. 

There is a magister in Redcliffe, and the mages have sworn themselves to him. He cannot understand why, and he does not want to. Terror clouds his mind, makes him unable to breathe almost. He dreads the next morning, when they will have to leave Haven for Redcliffe. He thinks he will take the Iron Bull along, as he watches him now, sitting next to him on the log, tinkering with Iriv’s axe because he said he knew some tricks to make the blade extra sharp. The other is huge, and he exudes confidence. He seems settled into himself, sure and steady, something Iriv usually despises in people. The qunari has been trustworthy, so far, and he seems genuine. And again, he is huge. Iriv feels childish but he has to admit, the thought of facing the mages with a veritable mountain by his side make him feel a lot safer. He’ll probably take Varric, too, because he is trusty and safe, and Vivienne. 

Vivienne seems to be as distrustful towards magic as he is himself, and by now he feels familiar with the touch of her barriers and her spells rushing by his ear don’t make him jump out of his skin anymore (he was reluctant of taking her along in the beginning, but he soon realized that a team without a mage in it simply did not work out). Vivienne has taught him a lot about magic in the past weeks. He even feels like she is starting to sound less derogatory talking to him, and that she is starting to enjoy his presence as well. There is tentative camaraderie between them, and Iriv could not be more thankful for a person that does not look at him with hope or worship in their eyes. 

“See, boss, should be perfect now,” the Iron Bull says, voice dipped low with disuse. Varric looks up from his crossbow and Sera lifts her head. She is sprawled out on the ground, folded elbows on the log Varric sits on, supporting her head. Iriv knows curiosity will beat his caution soon, and they will talk. He hopes she will answer his questions honestly. He wants to know what life had been like, for his mother. 

The weight of his axe is familiar in his hands. It makes him a bit calmer, thinking about what he will have to face the next day. “I’ll never get over the size of that thing,” Sera giggles, biting down onto one of her hands, “shit, you overcomposing for something, huh?” The words come out breathy and unevenly, and her face grows redder and redder with wheezing breaths. 

“Overcompensating, girl. That’s the word,” Varric says, smirk on his face. 

“Who cares, he understood alright,” Sera says, still laughing, still looking at him. Iriv can feel the uninjured half of his face heat up. The Iron Bull lets out a roaring laugh that makes Iriv almost fall from his seat. Everyone is laughing now, peals of it like water dripping through the air, and Iriv tries to collect himself. He is used to people laughing at him, it’s quite alright. He is alright. This is alright. 

A huge hand claps down onto his back and he is jerked forward with the force of it. The Iron Bull looks down at him, his one eye squinted and his crooked mouth curling up. Iriv doesn’t think there is malice in his expression, although he cannot be sure, he had always found things like that hard to tell. “Now that’s something I’ve never thought of,” he laughs, the same gravity to his voice as always, “think I’m overcompensating too, Sera?” and he wiggles his eyebrows. Sera cackles, and as the attention shifts from him, Iriv breathes again.

Later, as he lies on his field bed, unable to fall asleep, he allows himself to smile a little. They probably weren’t laughing at him, but with him. Maybe he found some kind of place here.

He’s gotten so good at lying to himself.

***

Desperation bounces around in his head, clattering when it hits the walls just as the noise of his axe does when he takes it from his back. His whole body aches. He can feel splinters stuck under the skin of his face, his palms, his knees. One of his calves feels awfully tight, and he can’t really straighten that leg out without a ripping sort of pain. His lungs are on fire and every one of his nerves is still singing with adrenaline, with pure, unfiltered _fear_. The fear of looking into the eyes of something that is bigger than him, older than him, _more_ than him in every sense of the word, and the knowledge that if he dared to look away, everything would die. 

He goes to swing at one of the demons, metal swishing through air, once, twice, and something in his shoulder grinds together threateningly. His body feels heavy and his head thick, vision still blurry with the force of the impact. He is weary. He cannot do this. 

The mark on his hand flares, and suddenly a rift opens up just above him, pulling at the demons until they disintegrate. He is weary; he screams, the sound not penetrating the fog settling over him. He can feel it tearing through his sore throat, though, ripping at the flesh. The fear and the pain and everything else inside him swells and swells. He wishes it would keep going, shredding him open from the inside out. He slaps his branded hand onto the rough ground, feels more of the skin tearing as a pebble digs into it. He grounds his hand down harder onto that sharp edge, twists and twists and hopes he will dig the mark right out ( _the anchor,_ the monster had called it, why had it not just _taken it_ ). 

He had not realized had fallen to his knees. When he lifts his head now, his eyes focus again for the first time since he had flung himself into this dark nightmare. A bright opening, a snowstorm. Somehow, his feet move. One step, two step, step, stumble – step again, and again. The howling of the wind replaces the ringing in his ears. Somewhere in the cacophony he can see a fire. Snow crunches under his feet, and he is walking.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tried some new things with my writing style, I hope this turned out okay.

The Iron Bull spots him first. The qunari stops mid-charge, turns around faster than should be possible for someone his mass. Behind him, Iriv can spot Krem lowering the shield he had been holding. Soldiers all around are copying him and Iriv smooths his sleeves down over his crawling skin. 

“’Bout time you came down to the grounds, boss,” the Iron Bull laughs, coming over to clap one of his shovel hands down on Iriv’s shoulder and making his knees shake. They don’t buckle, thankfully. He knows how to plant his feet, how to stand unshakably. “C’mon get one of the practice weapons, let’s do this,” and he rolls his shoulders, dancing on his feet a little, a gleam in his one eye that Iriv is familiar with by now. 

“No, I simply wanted to-“ Iriv starts, but the Iron Bull is already turning away, gathering people around them. Iriv can see Cullen look up from his papers, furrowing his eyes at the ruckus. Krem comes to stand by Iriv.

“Sorry, boss, don’t think you’re getting outta this one,” the other man grins, smirk lopsided on his face. His speech sounds so different from Dorian’s smooth, sure glide. “But, I’m stoked to see you fighting again,” he says exaggeratedly, stretching his arms up over his head, “’s quite the spectacle.” 

The Iron Bull comes back over to them, Cullen close at his heels, his eyes trained on Iriv. They have not spoken since their arrival at Skyhold. What Iriv remembers of the time between Haven and here is quite pathetic. He remembers falling to his knees in the snow just as Cullen’s words cut through the beating wind. He does not remember Cullen carrying him back into camp. This he had to hear from Mother Giselle, and the thought alone makes his stomach dip and give out. Right now, the light reflects golden from his eyes and the curls on his head are bopping slightly with each step he takes. The color palette alone makes Iriv dizzy, and to his horror it is not entirely unwelcome. 

“Here you go boss,” the Iron Bull says and thrusts a sword at his chest, not quite as large as his usual weapon. The weight of it feels good in his hands and he straightens his back. “I did not come down here to fight, the Iron Bull, I-“ 

“How many times do I have to tell you, Bull is fine,” the other interjects, then leans down to roughly Iriv’s height “and this is good for morale, boss. Lot of these people have never seen you fight, and let me tell you, it’s a vision, can’t deprive them of that.” 

Iriv scoffs, orders letters and words around in his head to speak carefully. “I cannot understand why you are all so obsessed with it. Fine.” Krem next to him laughs loudly.

He shoulders past Bull and sets his weight down in the middle of the now quiet training grounds. He can feel their eyes on him, sizing him down and his blood heats up uncomfortably. 

Fighting Bull is actually quite enjoyable. He knows how the other moves by now. He has become one of his favorite companions, after Redcliffe, and sparring with someone so obviously out of his league always gets him going in the best of ways. Blood rushes through Iriv’s ears at Bull’s first swing and he catches it with his own sword, lets the weight of the strike push his arms down and then turns out from under the blade, muscles in his shoulders and his back bunching up. Bull is, again, faster than expected and everything starting from there is a blur. Adrenaline courses through him and his body knows exactly what to do, tensing all over ready to spring, muscles remembering what to do before his head catches up. Bull’s laugh cuts through his head and he hears himself laugh back. He does not remember how long it’s been and that thought makes him laugh harder, push harder, and with one punch of the pommel against Bull’s back, he goes down. 

“You needed that,” the qunari says, smirks as he lifts himself up, and Iriv can’t even answer, still out of breath and still caught up in his own head. He nods nonetheless. 

He decided to stay behind a little, keep watching the soldiers, so that is where he is now: sitting on a waist-high stone wall with no discernable use, knocking his heels against the crumbling bricks. The last dredges of adrenaline coursing through his veins make him dread returning to the stone halls of Skyhold. They also make his head clearer than it has been in a long time. The air here in the mountains is clearer than any he has ever breathed down in the valleys of the Marches, and he’d always been a better thinker with his muscles tight and his blood pumping, anyway. 

Grass rustles next to him, and someone’s presence invades the calm of the moment. The edges of Iriv’s vision tinge gold, then red. He had known this would happen. A whisper at the back of his head tells him that he stayed behind _specifically_ to make this happen, how coy, how childish. The sudden wish to rake his fingers down his cheeks until they pull blood flashes through his head, then settles. 

“That was- I don’t know what to say.” The words are clear, spoken with a softness that Iriv has not heard from Cullen before. He feels the tips of his ears redden, and maybe he could just tear them off right along with the skin off his cheeks, get rid of the paranoia clinging to him like sticky syrup. The clanking of weaponry continues undeterred. 

“Not you, also. I do not understand what you find so special about an elf with a weapon.”

“To be fair, it is a very big weapon.” Silent laughter hides in the words and Iriv imagines what an actual laugh from Cullen would sound like. Like the waves of Lake Calenhad, maybe, or the spirit-silent rustle of Brecilian Forest, possibly. Probably, like the beating of wings over old battlefields. “In all honesty-“ hesitation to the words like chains to the wrists, “in all honesty, it is not who you are that is special, but what people see in you.” Iriv’s blood starts to run colder and slower. Cullen seems to realize the weight to his words and clears his throat, starts again. “A fight like that is fire to a soldier’s heart.” 

The grounds have faded into the background, and the scenery seems to tilt, towards and around the one focal point fixed right next to him. 

“I do not wish to be a symbol. I am me. I cannot be more.” He cannot be, because everything is foreign enough, complicated enough, for him to feel like he has lost himself entirely. 

They are silent for a while, Iriv still perched on the small wall and Cullen leaning onto it backwards, both elbows resting on the stone. Iriv watches him from the side, the slight sheen of sweat on a prominent browbone, scattered stubble over an even jawline. He tries to imagine what Cullen had looked like before he became the Lion of Ferelden. He thinks maybe he was less stiff, the muscles in his back and shoulders not yet shaped to hold up the weight of the armory, the title. 

“I think you underestimate how much you are,” Cullen says. Iriv bangs his heel against the wall a little too hard, and some of the stone crumbles and falls to the ground as little pebbles. Cullen jumps slightly, then blushes, straightens and coughs. “I should go. Mhm. Good fight,” and he walks away. Iriv feels his face burning again, but the urge to get away from the heat does not come this time.

\---

There is no way for him to turn anymore, except up. 

He gets lost in these halls so easily. He has probably walked the entire perimeter of the castle thrice over, and he still feels like he hasn’t seen enough of it. Maybe it is in the way the shadows seem to stretch at a different angle every time he walks by. Maybe it is just the paranoia clawing at his insides. 

He has entered the small tower, already halfway up the stairs, and there really is no turning around now. He does not remember crossing the courtyard but it is the only way he could have come from, and others saw him. He does not want to just turn back now. No one can know that the guiding light of all their hopes sometimes forgets his steps. No one can know that the guiding light is scared of the battlements, of the swindling heights and cold stone walls, and the man looking over them. 

He is not there. When Iriv steps up and into the open, there are no lion’s teeth to greet him. What he feels squirming in his gut is not quite disappointment, not quite relief. 

At least now he gets to appreciate the view. No matter how much he may yearn to feel comfortable in steady halls, under steady roofs, his mind was shaped by years of sleeping under the stars, of unlimited movement and unlimited air. No matter how much he wishes and hopes and curses, he will never feel at home buried under stone. 

When he looks down the side of the walkway, he can see most of the courtyard. At least whatever parts of it that are not covered by treetops and construction platforms. The wind carries up the hum of what is now everyday life, the crying of the wounded, the clanking of swords. His fingers on the balustrade dig into the moss-covered stones, and when he lifts one hand to lean his chin on, he smells wet earth and sweltering plants. These are the things he loves about Ferelden, and these are the things he missed. Rain perspiring on leaves and dogs barking. 

When the smell of wet fur reaches his nose, he doesn’t immediately make the connection, too caught up in his thoughts. He doesn’t hear the scratchy scuffing of shuffling boots. The following cough makes him jump, and he nearly punches himself in the mouth when his elbow slips.

“Oh, I- I am terribly sorry, I did not mean to startle you,” Cullen trips over his words but ends strong and sure, tone first unsure, then unwavering. Iriv can feel a headache forming just looking at him. He will never understand how a man can carry himself so tall and proud yet still seem so- unsure. How a man can wear a get up as imposing (ridiculous) as Cullen, yet remain approachable, _normal_ even. 

Cullen draws himself up, squaring his shoulders for attack, or relaxing them down, it is so hard to tell. He steps forward until he stands next to Iriv, lays his hands on the stone wall carefully, and looks down at the courtyard. “I do not often see you here,” he starts, eyes stoically forward, forehead open, “I do not often see you anywhere, honestly.”

“You see me in the war room,” Iriv says. He is trying not to shift his stance farther to either his right or his left (nearer to him or further apart, a split-second decision he does not trust his body to make). 

“Ah yes, I meant outside of work.” The scar on his lip twitches and dances with the emotion on his face. His eyes crease, one corner of his mouth lifting. 

“I do not know how or why I came here,” Iriv sighs. He feels little pebbles digging into his elbows and forearms when he lays them down on the stone. He feels at ease, once again. His fingers itch towards the wet fur strands, towards the things he could have been. He wills them down.

“It’s this wretched place,” Cullen breathes out after some time, “it is beautiful, but these walls were built to be defended, not to protect. Nor to welcome.” The wind blows around them. Iriv can hear it getting caught in the tangles on Cullen’s coat. “Ah, of course, I did not mean to presume, this is a place of your people after all,” he adds. Iriv takes a deep breath and pushes himself up to standing, walks over to the other side of the walkway, the one facing out over the mountains and the clouds. He can hear Cullen following behind him. “I did not wish to offend you,” spoken softer than before, barely audible as the wind picks up. 

Iriv closes his eyes, listens to the air blowing over the heights and valleys below. “You did not,” he says, paranoia clinging to the syllables, “I feel the same as you. This place is not a home, is it?” He turns to face Cullen, and he can see the sleepless dread in his eyes, too (he has learned long ago that you only see the real, ugly, terrible face of a thing if you look at it during a night of lost sleep). “A refuge, maybe, magicked into existence by an elf I know nothing about, but that I have no other choice than to trust.” 

Cullen stands and watches him. Somehow, they have stepped closer. The presence of the other calms him some; an unwelcome sensation, right now. 

“I suppose there is more work to be done, then,” Cullen sighs, rubs the back of his neck, “I will leave you to yourself again.” He steps back. “I _do_ work a lot at night. If you do, too, maybe that could be a time to spend a few moments. Outside the war room.” He smiles tentatively, and all impure images springing up in Iriv’s mind are instantly swept away again. 

“I think I would quite enjoy that, Commander.”

\---

Behind him, his newly assigned quarters lie. Only the best for their Inquisitor, their Herald. 

Iriv sits on the ground in front of the balustrade, looking in between the stone bars to look out over the castle, and he does not know what to feel. The song is still ringing in his ears, people bowing to him when he could hardly stand on his own. 

This place is so new, and he does not want to be here, he does not. Yet it’s exhilarating; a new place, new history, new people. 

He has collected a lot of stories the past few weeks (or has it been months?), and while he went to the conclave in search of stories of Ferelden, he found stories of himself, somehow. 

The story goes like this: an elf falls out of the sky, one half of his face with gashes on it, the other tattooed entirely in earth brown, and the grip around his axe glows as green as the sky. The story goes like this: an elf is born in Denerim, raised not as much on food as on songs, an elf is smuggled outside of the city walls to make a life with the Dalish, an elf is trying to learn new songs while dreading his own memory failing the old ones. 

And also, the story goes like this: an elf, meeting a man of stories and of songs and of legends. An elf, trying to convince himself that the prickling in his stomach is _remembering_ , not the first beginnings of love. 

He thinks back to the scene at the courtyard, himself with a sword raised high, and people rallying below him. He thinks back to the scene at the training grounds, and he pictures himself. An elf with a weapon twice bigger than himself, fighting a man twice bigger than himself, laughing, moving, winning. He thinks, he went to the conclave to find stories, and became one himself. He thinks, please let it not be a story of love.

\---

Now that they are in Skyhold, they have invested in something resembling a chef. The decision had been made one day in the war room, under loud protests of Cullen, Cassandra and Iriv. They had been in the middle of discussing plans concerning the sudden swaths of darkspawn spotted around the Storm Coast when Josephine had – as Cassandra explained later – literally and figuratively put her foot down. The timing was awful, he had thought, but the sight he is greeted with as he steps into the small dining area that morning makes up for it. 

The same warm, orange light that permeates the air all around Skyhold seeps through the high windows here, too. The morning lays bright and sharp over the mountains but spreads through the hall mellow and soft, more like the calm red tendrils of campfire light than the unforgiving rays of sun. Tables are scattered across the floor, all of them adorned with several chairs, and people talk. The chatter and scatter twirls up towards the high ceilings and that acoustic always makes understanding the foreign words so much harder, but here, all of them blend together into a pleasant hum that washes over him without expecting to be heard. Something about the lighting and the scent in the air makes him relaxed in a way he hasn’t been in forever. The thick air drives out the cold terror hiding behind his brain at all times, and he feels fuzzy, safe, even.

The hall isn’t anywhere near being filled. Countless chairs are still empty. He is sure the scent coming from the direction of what he knows to be the newly-improvised kitchen will carry everyone out of their beds sooner or later, but it is still early. He has always been an early riser, even before there was a permanent light shining in his face and an itch in his palm that even if shoved under a pillow cannot be ignored. 

There’s a table shoved into the far corner of the room, where Cullen sits, face tucked into his hands and muscles bunched between his shoulder blades. It’s rare to see the Commander out of his armor and for a second, Iriv feels all the air being sucked out of his lungs and replaced with the scratching and scrabbling of bugs. 

He knows he should not be feeling this, and he should not continue to indulge it, time and time again. Whatever _this_ is. A silly infatuation (silly affection, silly enchantment, silly yearning). Possibly. It is a new feeling, one he knows he has longed for all his life. He remembers stories of King Maric and the crippling loss of his childhood love and queen, remembers hearing songs of a travelling bard, serenading the rebel queen’s flaming hair and iron will, and he remembers how he went to sleep at night, at the edges of camp, and dreamed of seeing the most beautiful woman in a flowing white gown or a knight in shining armor, and maybe writing songs like that about them, too. What he felt then was longing, bright red and stifling. 

He did not expect to find it during the last moments of his life, of the world as he knows it. He does not think he wants it, now. 

Iriv makes his way towards the table in the back. He stops, shortly, right behind Cullen (he can see the light pale skin of his neck, can even make out slight freckles), breathes in, out, and walks around, takes a seat. 

Cullen only reacts once Iriv sets his plate down. He lifts his head out of his palms, and his face is haggard and gray, the scar through his lips ugly and stark against his skin. “Who – oh,” he breathes out, looking perplexed, then breathes in deeply. “Inquisitor.” 

Iriv’s skin curls at the title. He pushes the feeling down, tries to grind it to dust and forget it, but the particles spread through his veins with the bloodflow, thick and uncomfortable. “I did not wish to disturb you, I just –“ He doesn’t know why he sat down. “I’m sorry.” 

Cullen sighs again, then reaches forward for his cup of water. “No, don’t. If anyone should apologize, it is me. How unsightly I must look right now.” 

“Long night?” Iriv asks, thinks about all the times he considered taking Cullen up on his invitation, but didn’t. Cullen does look awful, but he also still looks like _Cullen_ , alive and breathing, a presence larger than Iriv has ever encountered before. 

“Unfortunately so,” he says, “reports came in from the new camp at the crossroads. They are hunting down the last stragglers there and asked me for-“ he stops. “You don’t want to hear about that right now.” He reaches one hand back to scratch at his neck (Iriv’s eyes follow the muscles in his arms as they bunch and crinkle the shirt) and bites his lip, chuckles a little although his eyes are still hollow. “I am no good at casual conversation.” 

Iriv could listen to him shape out consonants and drag his voice over vowels all day. Tired as he is, he grounds out his words a little more, some kind of accent seemingly mixing in with his smooth Common. “I am not, either,” he says, “but you must have noticed that by now.” Sleep still clings to the words and makes them heavier, more slurred than he knows they should be. Cullen smiles tiredly, and Iriv cannot resist smiling back. They sit in silence for a while, before Cullen clears his throat and looks away. Iriv feels himself blush (most of the color fortunately hidden behind stretches of inked scar tissue, and he sends a quick thanks to Elgar’nan, for choosing this specific design). He looks around the hall, concentrates on his food, looks around again. He can feel Cullen looking at him. 

The angles of the shadows slowly change with the steady rise of the sun, but the color of light stays the same. Everything is still dipped in molten gold, the metal cutlery glinting and shining. The hall has started to fill up, soldiers coming to get food before their practice. Most of them sit far apart from the few mages who made their way to the hall. Iriv cannot blame them. The robed men and women appear as little red spots in his periphery, and he cannot tear his attention away from them, now that he has noticed them. 

“I am very glad you conscripted them,” Cullen says. When Iriv looks at him, he looks serious once again. The bags under his eyes are prominent as ever, but he has seemed to wake up some. “I know some may not agree, but – it is certainly safer this way.” _I feel safer this way_ , he hears clinging to the words, and in Cullen’s eyes he sees a much younger man, pained, terrified. 

“You are a templar. You were in the tower of Ferelden during the Blight, were you not? I have heard stories.”

Cullen looks pained. “I do not wish to speak to speak of that time,” he says, stops himself. He looks at him curiously. Ice freezes Iriv’s blood over.

“The Dalish tell stories of the Circle of Ferelden?” 

Explanations fly through his head. He could say _the Dalish helped the Hero,_ could say _the Dalish remember the Blight just as much as you humans do_ , could say _I simply heard it by the wayside_ , he could, he could – 

Instead, he says: “I did not grow up with the Dalish.” 

“No?” 

“No.”

He looks down at his now empty plate, tries to ignore his beating heart, cut out of his chest and laid down on the table like an offering. The hall feels crowded, suddenly. He feels fear creep under his skin like the first dread before a nightmare. He is convinced the red spots in his periphery are all staring at him now. 

He is still looking down when Cullen says: “We really do know nothing about you.”

Iriv takes a deep breath, squares his shoulders and stands up, makes to leave. 

“No, you don’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning for this chapter: There is description of an anxiety/panic attack. It is over quickly and not described in too much detail but it does include some mild self harming behavior and it is dealt with rather poorly.

“Inquisitor, you’re right on time, as always!” 

Dorian’s voice carries over the small courtyard, intonation dipping and soaring, that sing-song pretty melody of waves climbing and crashing and climbing. The way Dorian glides over words makes his speech harder to decipher than just about anyone else’s, although Iriv knows his pronunciation is impeccable. He likes listening to it. 

Iriv looks at Cullen in confusion. The two of them are perched over the small chess table, situated under the open canopy that’s tucked into the far corner of what Iriv is trying to make into a garden of sorts. He is standing beside the few plotted plants that are already blooming. He came here to add more to them. 

Cullen leans back and looks up at him. He is in full armor, again. Iriv doesn’t know why he insists on leaving the heavy coat and plate on everywhere he goes. Not even he himself keeps his on. “Why don’t you come over? Seems like Dorian needs a third party to determine his obvious loss.” 

Iriv starts to make his way over and Dorian laughs, loud and hearty. “I’m sure if you just take one look at the board, you’ll know who won, Inquisitor.” 

He comes to a stop right next to the small table and looks down at the assortment of little black and white pieces on it.

“I have never played chess before,” Iriv said, trying to keep his voice from dropping too low to be comprehensible. There is an awkward silence in which he could feel them looking at him, but Dorian is quick to recover (the other is always light on his feet, either regarding his wit or his fighting).

“Oh well then, make sure to take my seat, we can’t have the leader of the Inquisition not knowing how to play a decent game of chess,” he says, and starts to get up, “it is a matter of political expertise, in the end,” and he winks at Iriv. 

“One need not know the rules of chess to know you lost, Dorian. They’d just have to check the pieces for traces of mana,” Cullen says, tone lighter than Iriv is used to. It suits him.

Dorian laughs again, even louder now, and Iriv is aware of people’s attention on them. “But until you do that, dearest Commander, my king cornered yours.” He saunters away, halfway down the stairs to the patio when he turns around again. “Also, it is simply not my fault you let yourself get distracted so easily. All is fair in love and war,” and he winks at Iriv, then practically skips down the stairs, head held high and back straight, shoulders only barely shaking with what may be laughter. Iriv feels his cheeks heat up. 

When he turns around, Cullen is looking after the mage wide-eyed and red-cheeked. When he notices Iriv’s eyes on him, he closes his mouth, coughs, shuffles, points at the now vacant chair, opens it again. “Please, sit, Inquisitor.” 

“I really wish you would not call me that,” Iriv says, but settles down anyway. Something about Cullen that day is different, or maybe it is the day itself, or the calm of the garden. He feels like he can let go, for a while.

Cullen begins to collect all the pieces and line them up on either side of the board. The line of his shoulders slopes downward, today. He seems more grounded. “What would you like me to call you, then?” His fingers are deft and quick, careful, only small clicks sounding out where the metal pieces are set down. 

Iriv laughs quietly, and Cullen looks up very abruptly, then down again. “My name, preferably.” 

“Ah, but I am afraid I would butcher it.” Cullen leans back in his chair and places his elbows onto the armrests, hands folded before his chest. 

“I butcher your name all the time,” Iriv says, and it is true. He knows whenever he says Cullen’s name, the tone is off, and he voices the middle consonant too high, drags it out for too long. 

Cullen inclines his head to the side, pulls his eyebrows together slightly. “Not so much anymore. Or maybe I just got used to it.” 

Iriv got used to it, too. He knows his accent is less prominent now. He always thought he’d be happy if he just sounded like he did before again, like his mother. Now, all it does is make him hate the words he speaks even more. 

“I-riv,” he says, carefully, the first, short ee sound followed by the tapping of his tongue against the roof, followed by an almost-whistle. His own voice sounds like his Keeper’s just for a moment. 

Cullen looks hesitant, and Iriv holds his breath. When he does try out the syllables, equally slowly, less sure, more reverent, Iriv’s heart beats harder. Cullen lets out a sharp breath, shakes his head. “That was horrible.”

“You don’t need to get it right, it doesn’t matter,” he says, and thinks, _just give it time, give_ us _time._

Cullen sighs again. When he pushes a hand through his hair, some of the hairs stick straight up for a few seconds, before a burst of wind pushes them down again. “I would very much like to get it right, though. You do your best to sound familiar to the people all the time, should we not try the same for you?”

Ants crawl up the exterior wall of the tower next to them, the corner which the patio is tucked into near perfect, flooded with light but mostly sheltered by rain, crowded enough for it to feel lively yet not as bustling as other spaces inside the castle walls. It is a nice day, too, the sun beating down as harshly as ever, if not a little more temperate. He almost regrets having put on his jacket that morning, although he knows that the sunlight filtering in through the windows in the morning is tricky. No matter how hard the sun tries, this far up in the mountains the air never fully warms. He misses summers in the Marches, all of a sudden, where on calm days, a flimsy shirt would suffice to keep him warm (he realizes all of a sudden that no one here has seen this much skin of him, which means none of them have seen the vines sprawling out over his skin – he suddenly doesn’t regret his choice in outerwear anymore). 

His attention snaps back when Cullen clears his throat and clothes rustle from his direction. His clothing adds so much heft to any movement, it’s – not mesmerizing, or imposing. Comfortable, safe, familiar, somehow. 

“So, are you ready to learn chess?” He grins, one elbow now leaned onto the table. He looks so natural like this, it makes something uncomfortable stir in Iriv’s belly, then die down again. He’s always been good at affecting ease, why does it make him feel so small right now? 

“When I was younger, I used to play against my older sister. Maker, she handed it to me every time,” he chuckles, “so I went and practiced with my brother in secret, and then _I_ beat _her_. I’ll never forget the look on her face.” He’s still smiling, eyes far away, and Iriv can’t look away.

“What are their names?” 

“My siblings'?” Cullen looks momentarily confused, then his smile grows brighter. “My older sister’s is Mia. Then the younger ones are James and Bryant.” 

“Mia? My mother’s name was Téa.” 

He realizes the mistake as soon as the first sound passes over his lips. In his newfound accent, the name sounds too perfectly familiar, not nearly outlandish enough to belong to a Dalish, maybe to even belong to an elf. They had not talked since that day in the hall, even though they had their meals together ever since. They had not talked like this, again, with Cullen’s eyes open and the lion’s mask forgotten. With Iriv’s lips too careless to wait out the usual calculations of _is this enough information? Not too much? Not too little?_

(The realization that _he gets careless around Cullen_ is a dangerous one. Even more dangerous is the empty spots in his stomach that should coil and roar, following it.)

“Do you have any siblings?” The day is still beautiful. Cullen is still sitting the same, looking at him the same. Iriv breathes. 

“Oh – you see, the Dalish do not really have family ties, not in the way shemlen have,” he starts. He likes talking about this, and he likes how Cullen actually seems interested, perking up and tilting his head (like a puppy, maybe). It’s been a long time since he has talked about this part of himself. “Clans have a lot of – fluctuation, is the word. Traveling, in the woods, or around provinces. It is dangerous. So some children have their parents in the clan but others do not,“ he sees the gears in Cullen’s head start to turn, “so we want no child to feel left out.”

“So, Dalish children grow up – without parents?” Cullen looks confused again, but not aggravated at the mentions of the cruelties of his people. Curious, almost. 

“No, no, some children of course are born into the clan and they have their parents. But others do not. So, some adults are hunters and others are warriors or care for the halla, and then others they – I think, you would call it – care for household?” He thinks this is the longest sentence he has ever spoken in complete Common. He cannot even feel bad about the traces of an accent that wormed themselves into and over the words, because remembering this feels good in a way remembering times long lost never does. 

“So, if I understand correctly, the clan is one, big, family.” 

“Yes,” Iriv says, then: “You really don’t know anything about us. I thought you had more knowledge of us, anything, even.” 

“Your people _do_ keep to themselves a lot. Although, if even so, you are forced to raise your children communally, I can’t blame you.” 

“I did not tell you this to make you feel guilty,” Iriv says, and he really didn’t. He _really_ didn’t, even though he maybe should have. Even though any other elf in his clan probably would have. Again, he wishes he hadn’t been the one to be sent to the Conclave, feels woefully inadequate for the position he finds himself in. 

Cullen frowns. “I know. It’s just –“ he pauses, seemingly straightening out his next words. Iriv holds his breath. “What you said that day in the courtyard. You are you. I’d like to understand who that is.” 

Cullen lets out a breath and averts his eyes. Iriv tries to sort through the shambles his brain is left in, reaching for anything, an appropriate reaction, an appropriate emotion, but he feels like he is wading through fog. “So you grew up with your siblings? You said you joined the templars very early,” he says instead. 

Cullen chuckles again, at that (the sound doesn’t really help him with the mess in his head, but it makes the fog a little lighter). “Thirteen, yes. The little village we lived in, it had about five farmhouses, a chantry, and one templar outpost. Only one street. That’s it.” Cullen looks at him, and Iriv nods. “So, there wasn’t a lot to do. We grew up really close because of that. Chess and hide and seek and nothing else to do really. Except to bother the poor old templar stationed with us.” 

Iriv can imagine a smaller Cullen, running around chasing after his siblings, through golden fields and sprawling woods, big and endless because for small children, everything seems to be.

“I used to beg the old man to teach me everything, so I could enter the actual training at the Order. Thirteen is actually quite old to join, most children get promised to the Order at birth.” 

“So in the Order, there are babies?” Cullen nods. “So if you are being raised there, that’s not so different from how I was raised in the clan.” 

Cullen is quiet for some time, brows furrowed. “I guess you could say that,” he says, crosses his arms. 

“Why do they do that? The Chantry, it – It takes children from their parents to train them to protect only others, and others it takes to – the Circle –“ he trails off, unsure of what he wants to say, why exactly the concept bothers him so much. 

“Ah yes, the Circle.” And they are back to this, this unease, this thing that connects them both. 

Iriv stares out into the garden. They are mostly alone now, and he is glad to find so, but also still unnerved that people mind him so much to know when to leave him alone. There are still people lingering in the open hallways on the far end of the small meadow. He sees that some of them are mages, most of them even. He regrets ever deciding to help them at Redcliffe, ever taking them in. He regrets ever getting to know some of them so well. 

“I talked to a lot of people here,” he says, still looking out at the yard (he does not want to see his own fear reflected in the other’s eyes), “mages, too. I like them. But magic –“ he hesitates, the part of his brain he has been so good at pressing down into the crevices of his spine since arriving at Skyhold wiggles and squirms. “I am scared.” 

He hears clothes shift, a wooden chair leg scraping over age-old stone. His battle-trained mind tells him Cullen is now closer to him, leant over the chess field. He does not dare turn towards him. 

“I have done things, here, out of fear. I am in power. I know what that makes me.” For the hundredth (thousandth, millionth) time, he wishes he had more words. Maybe if he had more to choose from, the ones he did decide on didn’t get stuck in is throat like tar. 

Cullen is silent for a while and when he does speak up, his voice is low and Iriv can hear traces of an accent knocking at the syllables, something rougher, less elegant than the standard Ferelden intonation. “I have seen what fear makes people do. Especially those in power. I have seen it in myself,” he says and Iriv’s focus drifts towards the words in a way he is not used to while listening, “I have not seen that in you, Iriv.” 

When he finally turns away from the yard, and back to Cullen, he doesn’t worry anymore what this must look like. How unsure he knows he looks. How close they are. 

“When we are alone, can you say it more often? My name?” He hesitates. “It makes me remember. I am scared I will forget.”

 

“What was she like? The Hero?” Iriv asks and he can hear the stress he puts onto the word, how it seems to almost rip itself from his mouth with beseeched reverence. Cullen, for his part, looks up at the name (not a name, but it may well be with how synonymous it has gotten with the woman) and Iriv sees the care he put into voicing it mirrored in the other’s eyes. 

He chuckles, low and fatalistic. “Where is this coming from, may I ask?” 

“You knew her.” 

“I assure you, I did not.” 

_You knew her more than I did,_ Iriv wants to say. He himself only saw her from afar, sneaking around the alienage. He was no longer there for the final fight and he is glad for it. He feels ashamed to admit that he is maybe equally glad for not having to witness his mother’s death as he is for not having to witness Her’s. 

(Iriv knows, looking at Cullen, that he will not learn a great deal from him. He knows he should rather ask Leliana. And yet.) 

Cullen lays down his feather and puts the document he was working on away onto a pile of others that Iriv thinks are all unfinished. The light of the candle and that of the moon mix together to paint eerily mismatched shadows onto his face. It is the second time Iriv has taken Cullen up on that long-standing offer of spending their insomnia-plagued nights together. He does not remember the first one, only vaguely knows that he was dead on his feet and drenched through to his bones after a trip to the Fallow Mire; dead on his feet, but nevertheless unable to sleep, still buzzing with adrenaline. He remembers sitting in a chair watching Cullen work and pace and work far less. That night is a blur. This one – this one is not. 

“Did you see her in – “ Cullen starts, then seems to think better of it. Iriv is glad he shows as much tact as he does. He’s called Iriv’s game long ago, he knows this. Yet, he skirts around it, tactfully and artfully and only slightly invasive. Iriv feels obligation tug at his tongue and build in his throat, but he cannot say it out loud, _my mother was a city elf, I am from Denerim, I am Ferelden._

Cullen pauses for a bit, just staring at Iriv, leant back in his chair. Heat prickles under his skin. “She was terribly cruel”, is what he settles on, “cold, even, in the way she went about peace. She had a way of pointing out all your flaws and shortcomings so that you may see yourself as the terrible person that you are.” He pauses again. “That I was, anyhow,” he continues, quieter now. 

Cullen talking so openly about who he was before the Lion catches him off-guard. Confusion makes anger rise in him. “I wanted to know of her, not of you.” How dare Cullen sit in this soft air, in this soft dress shirt, eyes open and heart open and sound so much like his mother did when she talked about the Hero. 

Cullen clears his throat. “Ah, naturally.” He leans forward now and his eyes are not angry. Iriv suddenly feels woefully inadequate, woefully out of place. 

“She was not a mage,” Cullen continues, as if Iriv had never interrupted at all, “but she knew the Fade, when she came to the Tower. She knew spirits and she knew demons, both human and not. If I had only listened to her then, a lot of the sins I pray the Maker may forgive me one day would not burden me now.” 

“What would she have done?” Iriv cannot stop himself from asking, even though he knows the answer, deep in his bones. 

“What do you mean?” Cullen asks. Iriv pauses, then forces the words out of his mouth, and when they spill forth they drip Ferelden, they drip the Marches, they drip Elvhenan. They drip his life. “What would she have done with the mages?” _Cowardly imprisoned them as I did,_ he doesn’t add. 

Cullen laughs, then. Iriv startles, nearly rocks out of his chair with it. Cullen, with his head thrown back, does not seem to notice. Iriv thinks, with his throat exposed like that, his axe would cut Cullen’s head clean off. He thinks, with his throat exposed like that, Cullen must not think so little of Iriv. He rights himself, and settles. Cullen follows suit. “To imagine her as the Inquisitor… No, she would have burned Haven to the ground before she found herself in any position of authority.” He pauses. “From what I hear, she _has_ all but burned Haven to the ground.” 

Iriv draws his knees closer to his chest. Cullen leans forward, one elbow on his desk holding his head upright. The shadows shift and scatter along the lines of his face. The atmosphere around them shifts, not in any direction Iriv can decipher, but he feels stifled, closed in, all of a sudden. As he does so often with Cullen, he realizes that the feeling is not entirely unwelcome. “I apologize,” Cullen says, “I know you did not wish to be in this position, either.” 

A derisive laugh startles out of Iriv. “Oh, no, I did not.” 

“I like the other laugh better. The happy one,” Cullen says and Iriv’s cheeks heat up worse than he ever thought possible. 

The fire in the hearth dies out, leaving only embers. Outside, an owl hoots, the leaves rustle, the dying groan. He realizes that he has begun to think of this place as a home, of sorts. Above Cullen, a makeshift roof and a makeshift bedroom rest. They rebuilt the throne room and restructured the towers and somewhere between those two, he started to wish himself back between Skyhold’s walls whenever he was outside them. 

“This night is rather strange,” Iriv says at length. Cullen only shakes his head, almost fondly, and settles his attention back onto his papers. He does not look back up until both of the candles on his desk have burned out. Iriv is only half awake at that point, lulled into calm by the steady scratching of Cullen’s feather on the parchment. 

“Are you going to bed?” He asks. Cullen rounds his table and drapes his coat over Iriv. It is warm and stifling and only a little too heavy. 

“No, I think right here is perfectly fine.”

 

Morning rises high over the desert sand mountains, stretches its tendrils carefully, slowly into the emptiness the departure of the exiled Wardens left behind. Looking out over the plains, he thinks he can see the metal of their griffon plate catching the rays, blinding him. He goes to wipe the sweat off his brow with his arm only to scorch his skin with the glowing metal of his arm braces. He hisses. He’s not made for this kind of weather, this kind of heavy, man-made plate, this kind of _responsibility –_

When a hand lands heavy on his shoulder he nearly topples over the balustrade he is standing at. Vertigo grasps at his chest and threatens to pull him down. It doesn’t, in the end. What a shame.

Cullen stands behind him, taller than him, broader than him. He carries his armor well, even more so than at Skyhold. It has little specks of blood on it, still, and a new notch sits itself right above where the fur connects to the shoulder piece. Iriv is glad that the Lion’s face lies across Cullen’s back and not across his forehead. He doesn’t think he could bear another set of eyes staring him down. 

The other still has his hand up in the air, obviously surprised by Iriv’s reaction. He slowly lets it fall to the handle of his sword. The action probably isn’t supposed to be as threatening as Iriv thinks of it. He has to get himself together. He is not on the battlefield anymore. Cullen would never hurt him (would he?), and Iriv – 

Iriv releases the death grip he still has on the balustrade behind him, shaking wet dirt from his gloves. He wills his attention away from the bloody axe strapped to his back, pulling him away from the man with the sword, towards the depths of the castle walls. 

 

“All of the wounded and dead are assembled and accounted for. We are ready to leave.” 

“What gives me the right to decide this?”

Silence falls, heavy and thick. He will never hear or feel anything as heavy or thick as the Fade ever again, he realizes with a sick sort of finality. He will never again feel anything as final as the Fade, either. 

Cullen casts his eyes down, then out into the desert. With Iriv’s eyes still fixed on visions of ghostly green fog, his silhouette seems to blend into the endless gold of the dunes. Then, they fall on him again. “You are the Herald,” he says, “He chose you for this.” His gaze does not quiver, but Iriv’s guts do, “I believe this now more than ever.” 

It isn’t anger rushing up in him. It’s not desperation, not sadness, not fear. It’s his blood, it’s his heart, it’s all his words swelling and boiling until they flood his lungs and block all his thoughts out. Words fail him. It’s the same feeling he gets whenever he gets a letter wrong and puzzles endlessly about the resulting nonsense word; the same feeling he gets when he _knows_ he knows the Common word for damned _bread_ but it’s just not coming to him, is just not penetrating the anxious layer over his brain. The same, stupid, _dumb_ fucking feeling – 

He sits down on the floor, knees tucked towards his chin. He buries his hands in his hair and tugs until he feels the sting of it, except he’ll never feel any pain remotely close to what the Fade felt like laying itself onto his skin, except it’s in his head now, driving out all his words. 

He cannot do this again. He cannot stand in front of a crowd again and rule their fate. He can’t he can’t he _can’t_ why won’t these people realize – 

Strong hands carefully detangle his fingers from his hair. The familiar scent of wet dog hair catches in his nose, now laced with something metallic, but still home. He thinks of nights spent wrapped up in this scent and can only think about how vulnerable he made himself, how stupid he was. 

Both of the hands now clasp Iriv’s left, the one with the mark. It’s still flaring a little more wildly than usual. He tries to tug it away from Cullen’s face. The mixture of green and gold is making him nauseous. 

“For what it’s worth, I believe in you. And I am so, _so_ glad to have you back.” 

The man wipes at Iriv’s tears, pats down his hair, and then clears his throat and rises. “I will tell Varric, Bull and Vivienne to stay back, that you will travel home on your own.” 

He is left alone on the walkway, back to the brick blocking him from yet another decision made because he was too scared to think straight. 

Instead of tugging on his hair again he strokes his fingers over the raised, dark ink covering one half of his face. Silently, he prays to Elgar’nan, who does not answer. He only finds his words again when they ride back into Skyhold’s courtyard. 

 

Words leave his mouth, some spoken, some sung. Elven, Common, then Elven again – they criss and cross and pitter and patter away. 

No matter what language, what intonation, none of them seem to stick. Instead, they float in front of him, mocking him, until the wind carries them away to dissipate over the courtyard. No matter what words he tries, Elgar’nan will not answer him.

He tries to remember the night of his Coming of Age, the ceremony that left his face bicolored and overgrown with vines. The Keeper, back then, had told him to sit and to listen to the Gods. No one had talked then, either. So he had talked. Had talked of all the stories he had picked up travelling, the ones he had overheard wanderers of the humans tell, then ones he had overheard the Eldest tell by the campfire while he himself was cast off to the side. And he had told stories only he could know, he, the one neither Dalish nor City Elf, neither Ferelden nor Marcher. The one the Dalish never quite got around to naming one of their own and who the City Elves would never again recognize as one of theirs, after this day. 

Elgar’nan hadn’t talked that day. Elgar’nan doesn’t talk this day. 

At least that day, Iriv had felt something shift in his heart, something his Keeper had interpreted as the good will of his patron.

This day, he is alone on his balcony, the light of the moon a stark reminder of how justice and vengeance are two different things. He tries to banish the retreating backs of the Wardens from his memory and bows his head in shame.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha. So. I'm not too happy with this. But I've been brooding over it for forever and I feel it just needs to be posted, so here it is. 
> 
> This is so self-indulgent. I love thinking about the Dalish and how they live and I love thinking about their relationship to the City Elves. I have some ideas of how deal with that relationship in the next chapter, so that's something to look forward to. At least for myself. While editing this I realized how terribly boring to read this story must be for people. But. Well. 
> 
> See you soon, hopefully.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Donna Tart's The Secret History. It's pretty late here and I drank too much coffee, so I decided to post this. I don't usually do multichaptered stuff, so this will be fun. I'm hyped. My tumblr is "irivail" I have like 1 follower but if you want to talk i'm there.


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